Measuring And Defining Crime Flashcards
What is crime?
-Act committed in violation of the law
What are 3 problems with defining crime?
- Cultural: definitions of crime vary cross-culturally
- Historical: what is considered a crime changes over time
- Circumstance: some cases legal system takes circumstance into account
Why is crime socially constructed?
-Reflects beliefs and attitudes of society
How do we measure crime?
- Using official statistics
- Home office publishes reports on crimes reported or discovered by police
What are the benefits of the Home Office publishing these stats?
-Since 1805: so trends can be tracked
What are the disadvantages of using stats to measure crime?
-Not everyone reports crime
What are victims surveys?
- P’s are asked to identify crimes committed against them
- 50,000 p’s chose randomly from postal addresses
What are the disadvantages of victim surveys?
-Validity issues: does not include those without a postal address
What is an offender survey?
- By the OCJS
- Collect info from offenders to develop understanding of behaviour
What are the disadvantages of offender surveys?
-Self report: not accurate
